In the program of research on normal and psychopathological childrearing and child development, the affective quality of the caregiving environment is a core focus. The environment has been conceptualized in terms of the kinds and intensities of emotions and moods that characterize the caregiver and enter into the relationship between parent and child. Mothers without psychiatric diagnosis and depressed (bipolar and unipolar) mothers and their young children (15 to 24 months) and sibling (5 to 8 years) are studied. The daily pattern or profile of emotions expressed by parent and child is obtained in a minute-by-minute rating of the predominant emotion. Records are of 3 hours of interaction on 3 days. These ratings permit assessment of the pervasiveness of given emotions, the variety and lability of emotion, the variation of emotions in relation to situational characteristics, psychiatric diagnosis of mother, and characteristics of child, and the functional significance of emotions in the mother-child dyad. Another set of analyses focuses on the socialization of the child's emotions: (a) the socialization of affection and (b) mother's strategies for handling children's emotional distress. These studies are now in coding stages.